Austan D. Goolsbee

Austan D. Goolsbee studies the Internet, the new economy, government policy, and taxes. Goolsbee explains, "I am a data hound and so I usually end up working on whatever things I can find good data on. The rise of Internet commerce completely altered the amount of information you could gather on company behavior so I naturally drifted toward it."

His research has earned him much professional recognition. In 2003, he was given a grant from the National Science Foundation. Goolsbee was named a 2006-2007 Fulbright Scholar. He will research Internet taxation in the U.S. and European Union while spending part of the upcoming academic year at the London School of Economics and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, also in London. He has been named one of the 100 Global Leaders for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum, a Switzerland-based group that builds partnerships between business and society.

Crain's Chicago Business has named him one if its "40 under 40" to watch. He was described by fellow University of Chicago economist and PhD classmate Steve Levitt as someone who "asks questions people care about." His ability to popularize economics has made Goolsbee popular in the media. Besides his New York Times column, he appears frequently on radio, the Web and television. Topics he has commented on include: education and the success rate of terrorists, TiVo's affect on advertising, the real estate bubble, and brokers incomes.

Goolsbee serves as a member of the U.S. Census Advisory Committee, a research associate for the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow for the American Bar Foundation, a columnist for the New York Times, and an economic advisor to Barack Obama.

He has twice been named as a "star" professor by BusinessWeek's biannual "Guide to the Best Business Schools." Goolsbee thinks his research on telecom, media, and technology makes his "class on the subject pretty different from what you can find anywhere else." His goal for students taking his classes is for them to leave with the ability to analyze companies, industries, and policies in a new way. He says "that after a lot of years of doing this, they have yet to disappoint me."

Goolsbee spent a year as a special consultant for Internet Policy for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and five years as a Faculty Research Fellow for the National Bureau of Economic Research. He also was the lead editor for the Journal of Law and Economics for several years.

He earned a bachelor's and master's degrees in economics from Yale University in 1991. Four years later, he graduated with a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined Chicago Booth in 1995.

Insanely committed to his work, Goolsbee was spotted in the classroom on his wedding day, tuxedo and all. He enjoys improv comedy and participating in triathlons.

Selected Publications
The Consumer Gains from Direct Broadcast Satellites and the Competition with Cable Television, Econometrica (2004).

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"Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry," Journal of Political Economy (2002).

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"In a World Without Borders: The Impact of Taxes on Internet Commerce," Quarterly Journal of Economics (2000).

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"What Happens When You Tax the Rich? Evidence from Executive Compensation," Journal of Political Economy (2000).

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Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry
Date posted: 11/18/2008
The Internet may significantly reduce search costs by enabling price comparisons on-line.

Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry
Date posted: 11/18/2008
The Internet has the potential to significantly reduce search costs by allowing consumers to engage in low-cost price comparisons online.

Measuring Prices and Price Competition Online: Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Date posted: 9/12/2008
Despite the interest in measuring price sensitivity of online consumers, most academic work on Internet commerce is hindered by a lack of data on quality.

The Importance of Measurement Error in the Cost of Capital
Date posted: 9/12/2008
Conventional estimates of the impact of taxes on investment may be seriously biased by measurement error in the cost of capital.

What Happens When You Tax the Rich? Evidence from Executive Compensation
Date posted: 9/12/2008
This paper examines the responsiveness of taxable income to changes in marginal tax rates using detailed compensation data on several thousand corporate executives from 1991 to 1995.

Taxes and Organizational Form: The Case of REIT Spin-offs
Date posted: 9/12/2008
In 2001, the IRS issued a ruling allowing firms to engage in nontaxable real estate investment trust (REIT) spin-offs.

How do Incumbents Respond to the Threat of Entry on Their Networks? Evidence from the Major Airlines...
Date posted: 9/12/2008
This paper examines how incumbents respond to the threat of entry of competitors, as distinguished from their response to competitors' actual entry.

Valuing Internet Retailers: Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Date posted: 9/12/2008
Many Internet retailers must raise margins in the future if they are to survive.

Investment Subsidies and Wages in Capital Goods Industries: To the Workers Go the Spoils?
Date posted: 9/12/2008
This paper looks at the impact of investment tax subsidies on the labor market for capital goods workers.

Investment Subsidies and Wages in Capital Goods Industries: To the Workers Go the Spoils?
Date posted: 9/12/2008
This paper looks at the impact of investment tax subsidies on the labor market for capital goods workers using data from the 1979-88 Current Population Survey.

Coveting Thy Neighbor's Manuafacturing: The Dilemma of State Income Apportionment
Date posted: 9/12/2008
This paper investigates the economic impact of the apportionment formulae used to divide corporate income taxes among the states.

In a World Without Borders: The Impact of Taxes on Internet Commerce
Date posted: 9/12/2008
The rapid rise in sales over the Internet has generated debate over the taxation of such transactions since the buyers usually pay no sales tax.

Does Government R&D Policy Mainly Benefit Scientists and Engineers?
Date posted: 9/12/2008
Conventional wisdom holds that the social rate of return to R&D significantly exceeds the private rate of return and, therefore, R&D should be subsidized.

Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Taxing Internet Commerce
Date posted: 9/12/2008
Current tax law makes it difficult to enforce sales taxes on most Internet commerce and has generated considerable policy debate.

Evaluating the Costs and Benefits of Taxing Internet Commerce
Date posted: 9/12/2008
Current tax law--and the current technical architecture of the Internet--make it difficult to enforce sales taxes on most Internet commerce.

Coveting Thy Neighbor?s Manufacturing: The Dilemma of State Income Apportionment
Date posted: 9/12/2008
This paper examines the economic impact of the apportionment formulae used to divide corporate income taxes among the states.

How Prevalent is Tax Arbitrage? Evidence from the Market for Municipal Bonds
Date posted: 8/25/2008
This paper examines tax arbitrage in the market for municipal bonds.

Coveting Thy Neighbor's Manuafacturing: The Dilemma of State Income Apportionment
Date posted: 7/31/2008
This paper investigates the economic impact of the apportionment formulae used to divide corporate income taxes among the states.

Taxes, Organizational Form, and the Deadweight Loss of the Corporate Income Tax
Date posted: 4/18/2008
By changing the relative gain to incorporation, corporate taxation can play an important role in a firm's choice of organizational form.

Investment Tax Incentives, Prices, and the Supply of Capital Goods
Date posted: 4/18/2008
Using data on the prices of capital goods, this paper shows that much of the benefit of" investment tax incentives does not go to investing firms but rather to capital suppliers through" higher prices.

The Business Cycle, Financial Performance, and the Retirement of Capital Goods
Date posted: 4/7/2008
The neoclassical investment literature assumes that capital is homogenous, lives forever and has a constant depreciation rate.

Estimating Adjustment Costs with Data on Heterogeneous Capital Goods
Date posted: 4/4/2008
This paper estimates the micro-level costs of adjusting capital using detailed data on" investment decisions in the US airline industry.

New: The Value of Broadband and the Deadweight Loss of Taxing New Technology
Date posted: 4/23/2006
With fixed costs of developing technology, taxes can generate large efficiency costs by slowing the rate of diffusion and these costs are not accounted for in conventional analyses.

New: Valuing Consumer Products by the Time Spent Using Them: An Application to the Internet
Date posted: 4/23/2006
For some goods, the main cost of buying the product is not the price but rather the time it takes to use them.

REVISION: Economists' Statement on U.S. Broadband Policy
Date posted: 4/13/2006
Broadband, or high-speed access to the Internet, has generated significant economic benefits.

REVISION: Economists' Statement on U.S. Broadband Policy
Date posted: 4/5/2006
Broadband, or high-speed access to the Internet, has generated significant economic benefits.

REVISION: Economists' Statement on U.S. Broadband Policy
Date posted: 3/23/2006
Broadband, or high-speed access to the Internet, has generated significant economic benefits.

How Do Incumbents Respond to the Threat of Entry? Evidence from the Major Airlines
Date posted: 10/3/2005
We examine how incumbents respond to the threat of entry by competitors (as distinct from how they respond to actual entry).

Are Durable Goods Consumers Forward Looking? Evidence from College Textbooks
Date posted: 7/6/2005
Popular wisdom holds that publishers revise college textbooks mainly to kill off the secondary market for used books.

The Impact of Internet Subsidies in Public Schools
Date posted: 8/29/2004
In an effort to alleviate the perceived growth of a digital divide, the U.

The Impact and Inefficiency of the Corporate Income Tax: Evidence from State Organizational Form Dat...
Date posted: 9/18/2002
By double taxing the income of corporate firms but not unincorporated firms, taxes can play an important role in a firm's choice of organizational form.

How Prevalent is Tax Arbitrage? Evidence from the Market for Municipal Bonds
Date posted: 8/16/2002
Although tax arbitrage is central to the literatures on tax capitalization, implicit taxes, and even capital structure, there is little empirical evidence of the extent to which firms actually engage in tax arbitrage.

Measuring Prices and Price Competition Online: Amazon and Barnes and Noble
Date posted: 8/1/2002
Despite the interest in measuring price sensitivity of online consumers, most academic work on Internet commerce is hindered by a lack of data on quantity.

The Consumer Gains from Direct Broadcast Satellites and the Competition with Cable Television
Date posted: 1/23/2002
This paper examines the introduction of Direct Broadcast Satellites as an alternative to cable television and the welfare gains such satellites generated for consumers.

Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry
Date posted: 10/5/2001
The Internet has the potential to significantly reduce search costs by allowing consumers to engage in low-cost price comparisons online.

Evidence on Learning and Network Externalities in the Diffusion of Home Computers
Date posted: 8/10/2001
In this paper we examine the importance of local spillovers such as network externalities and learning from others in the diffusion of home computers using data on 110,000 U.

Competition in the Computer Industry
Date posted: 6/28/2001
This paper estimates the relative price sensitivity of individuals' choice of whether to buy computers online versus in retail stores using a new data source on the computer purchase behavior of more than 20,000 people.

The Importance of Measurement Error in the Cost of Capital
Date posted: 4/10/2001
Conventional estimates of the impact of taxes on investment may be seriously biased by measurement error in the cost of capital.

Taxes, High-Income Executives, and the Perils of Revenue Estimation in the New Economy
Date posted: 4/10/2001
This paper attempts to help explain the unforecasted, excess' personal income tax revenues of the last several years.

Investment Subsidies and Wages in Capital Goods Industries: To the Workers Go the Spoils?
Date posted: 9/20/2000
This paper looks at the impact of investment tax subsidies on the labor market for capital goods workers using data from the 1979-88 Current Population Survey.

In a World Without Borders: The Impact of Taxes on Internet Commerce
Date posted: 9/10/2000
The rapid rise in sales over the Internet has generated debate over the taxation of such transactions since the buyers usually pay no sales tax.

Does Government R&D Policy Mainly Benefit Scientists and Engineers?
Date posted: 8/14/2000
Conventional wisdom holds that the social rate of return to R&D significantly exceeds the private rate of return and, therefore, R&D should be subsidized.

It's Not About the Money: Why Natural Experiments Don't Work on the Rich
Date posted: 7/26/2000
An influential literature on the effects of marginal tax rates on the behavior of the rich has claimed that the elasticity of taxable income with respect to the net of tax share is very high possibly exceeding one.

What Happens When You Tax the Rich? Evidence from Executive Compensation
Date posted: 6/10/2000
This paper reexamines the responsiveness of taxable income to changes in in marginal tax rates using detailed compensation data on several thousand corporate executives from 1991 to 1995.

Taxes and the Quality of Capital
Date posted: 5/7/2000
This paper shows that tax policy toward investment, by changing the relative prices of capital varieties, can have a direct effect on the quality of capital goods that firms purchase.